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Chapter 506
Chapter 506:
Memories struck him with the force of a freight train.
He remembered her standing in the kitchen of their penthouse in one of his oversized shirts, smiling as she handed him a cup of coffee — a quiet, devoted moment he had barely registered at the time, but which now screamed in his mind with agonizing clarity. He remembered her rubbing his temples when he had a migraine after a long board meeting — a gentle touch he had callously shrugged off, but which he now craved with a desperation that bordered on physical pain. He remembered the soft, hopeful look that used to fill her eyes every time he walked through the front door — a look he had systematically crushed until nothing remained but fear.
She had loved him. She had given him every single piece of her soul.
And in return, he had frozen her out. He had humiliated her. He had let his mistress torture her. He had ignored her calls while she bled out alone in a cold hospital room, losing their child.
A massive, suffocating wave of realization crashed over him.
He loved her.
𝘛𝗿𝖾ո𝘥і𝗇 𝘰𝗻
He had always loved her. The obsession, the jealousy, the desperate need to control her — it had all been a twisted, diseased manifestation of a love he had been too arrogant to acknowledge. And he had only arrived at this understanding after he had already destroyed her completely.
Cole’s knees buckled.
He collapsed beside her bed, his knees striking the hard linoleum with a dull, heavy thud. He bowed his head and buried his face in his shaking hands.
His broad shoulders began to heave. A low, broken sound tore out of his throat. He wept — the untouchable billionaire, the ruthless CEO, kneeling on a hospital floor and crying with the raw, devastated agony of a man who had just realized he had killed his own soul.
He wanted to reach out. He wanted to touch her pale cheek. His fingers hovered an inch above her skin. But he drew his hand back. He was too toxic. Too filthy. He had no right to touch her.
The quiet rhythm of the heart monitor shifted.
June’s brows twitched. A soft, distressed sound escaped her lips. The heavy grief radiating from the man beside her seemed to penetrate the drug-induced sleep, reaching her somewhere deep beneath the surface.
Her eyelashes fluttered. She turned her head slightly on the pillow.
She was waking up.
Cole’s head snapped up. Pure, primal panic detonated in his chest.
He couldn’t let her see him. He couldn’t bear the terror and disgust that would fill her eyes the moment she recognized his face.
He scrambled backward, his shoes slipping on the linoleum. He pushed himself upright, chest heaving, and wiped the tears from his face with the back of his sleeve in a frantic, uncoordinated motion.
He turned and bolted.